Combined with the final job unlock, I was about to pop. But, I figured I had exceeded my limit for the day and so I took out the navigation globe and stated loud and clearly to it.
"To Ephyxia."
The globe began to glow a soft colour and I saw tendrils of mana from the floor itself attach to the globe. It was working. So while I was making my way over there in my new, flying fortress, I would have some rest.
--
King Goh Hungwoo
"What do you mean you lost him?!" The king bellowed from atop his throne.
The leader of the Kirin guild's strongest party, shivered from head to toe at the anger behind the voice.
The king continued. "All I asked of you was to bring him in alive! And you runts can't even do that!" He slammed his fist down onto his wooden arm rest, a crack spreading from the impact to the bottom.
"My king, he overpowered us. He's no ordinary caster." The party leader bowed deeply as he explained himself. "He took our Elementalist hostage and then flew off."
"Well then chase him for goodness sake."
"We only know that he was flying from the trail he left in the clouds, otherwise we would think that it was teleportation." Rn'd explained.
"Ridiculous, no caster can fly that fast, your assassin has an agility score of over three hundred, how did he slip away?" The king asked, outraged at his subjects ineptitude.
"Our assassin couldn't see him move, sir, he was too fast for reason."
The king sat, contemplating his information. The caster could make a fire spell as large as the sky itself, could move faster than one of the fastest eyes could track and could physically overpower an elementalist.
"Where do you think he his going next?" King Hungwoo asked.
"Helena detected trace amounts of his signature in the sky so we suspect he has arrived at a sky dungeon." Rn'd spoke, head still towards the floor.
"He's as good as dead then, sky dungeons are among the most powerful and dangerous dungeons, our nation hasn't cleared one in five hundred years."
"Sir, he was taking on Lord Maou, the boss of the dungeon we found him at, alone." Rn'd started "His spells tore through solid rock, demon flesh and the magical barrier preventing flight into the maze."
"Hmm. Then there is a chance he lives, I suppose." The king stood. "You are dismissed, you and your party are to continue searching for this caster."
"Yes, my Liege." Rn'd bowed and quickly walked out of the room.
--
Yolen Arcanum
I awoke, looking around the large boss room I was in. I stood, erasing the things I didn't need for the day. I then created a fork and accepted the rewards of the daily quest.
SKILL LEVELED UP - GENESIS/DESOLATION - LVL 50
"Sweet, it's been a while since I leveled that up." I said, though in actuality I had skyrocketed through the levels the previous day so I felt I had somewhat neglected my individual skill.
I didn't really have any plans to do anything once I arrived in Ephyxia so leveling my skill would be a must, each coin must do something right?
As I was thinking along those lines, the sky fortress came to a halt, I could tell by the fact that the mana in the air was no longer moving and was instead stationary. I would likely not have this much privacy again for a while so I prolonged my stay in the sky by sitting down and creating things that came to mind.
About two hours and several skill level ups later I was ready to go, after I did one more thing. I absorbed all of the mana I could get my proverbial hands on. Millions of little mana particles were absorbed by me, I dared to even thing billions were absorbed. I let the mana flow freely, not stopping the visual or physical changes. My body flowed with so much mana that the white glow on my skin became constant, changing to blue and then purple, like mist rising from me. After half an hour of absorbing mana, I pushed most of the changes down and stood.
I lightly hopped into the air and flew out of the large boss room.
Soon I reached the outer edge of the cloud castle, a massive array of fields lay thousands of feet below me. An endless expanse of sky above, few clouds dotting it. I thought that my singular cloud would stand out, but remembering just how massive the land atop it is, I put that worry to the side and started my decent.
Arriving down in a town, small like the town I had initially landed in, a small wall had been erected some time ago around the village and there were guards posted atop the wall. I spotted them from afar with my sky-high intelligence stat so I landed far away and made my approach, carefully, on foot.
I put the hood of my shadow demon cloak above my head and activated it's skill, sinking into my own shadow; Thankfully, my sky fortress was blocking out the sun so most of the ground was shadowed anyway. I slipped underneath the wooden gate, slipping into one of the alley ways and reverting my transformation. I pulled my hood down and made my way back out into the streets, looking about. The buildings on this street were all businesses, large signs made of wood hanging out with large words on.
Before I went into the Whispering Oaks, which I quickly found, I decided to find a general store of some kind. I wanted a map, to gather some information of the world in which I now lived. I eventually found such a store and purchased a map with little bother from the shop keep.
Looking at it, I asked the shop-keep, rather awkwardly, where we were on the map. He pointed to a small, unnamed village on the map, at the bottom left corner, there were four countries on the map, one to the north, Garland, one to the west, the largest which I was currently in, Helios, a small nation to the south, Jarkon and finally, one to the east, Xarthos. By the sounds of the shop-keep, when he mentioned Xarthos, a distinct layer of hatred came through just before he mentioned that the two nations had been rivals for a long time, Xarthos being a primarily dwarvish nation and Helios being an elvish one. After a but of explaining the culture of the different nations, the old man seemed to know his stuff, I bid him farewell and made my way to the Whispering Oaks.
The whispering oaks was a textbook example of a fantasy tavern, tankards of ale, wooden cutlery, fire place, stage with bards on, barkeep waiting at the bar for eager patrons. I checked my quest log quickly to confirm what my objective was.
MANY MEETINGS
OBJECTIVE:
VENTURE TO THE VILLAGE OF EPHYXIA AND TALK TO THE BARKEEP AT THE WHISPERING OAKS.
REWARDS:
+5 ABILITY POINTS
Clearly it was meant as a low level quest, giving me five ability points, no where near the amount that I had gained the previous day from raiding two dungeons solo. Nevertheless, it was welcome. I approached the barkeep.
"Hello." I said, leaning on the bar.
"Hey there, patron, what can I get for ya?" The barkeep replied.
QUEST - MANY MEETINGS COMPLETE
LEVEL UP!
LEVEL UP!
+5 ABILITY POINTS
I grinned as the message popped up, followed by several rewards.
"Your finest ale please."
"Coming right up, sir." The barkeep rushed off to pour my drink.
Somebody sat down on the stool next to me, leaning over.
"Hello there, sir." A high, heavily accented voice came. "Looks like you're an adventurer?"
I turned to the man, he was short, so short that I was convinced that he wasn't human. So I brought up his stat screen with my automatic appraisal skill.
NAME - FULCRUM IPODEX
RACE - HALFLING
LVL - 37
HP - 174,048
HP/s - +170
MP - 10,878
MP/s - +54
JOB - SORCERER
INDIVIDUAL SKILL - COIN TOSS
STR - 45
AGI - 85
CON - 168
INT - 21
FTH - 22
ABILITY POINTS (0)
SKILL POINTS (0)
My hunch was correct about him not being human, he was a halfling, naturally small.
"Not an adventurer." I dismissed his assumptions with a wave of the hand.
"Not an adventurer, hmm? Then what is with the gauntlet? And the black cloak?" He gave me a small grin. I scanned him for magical items, and found one.
BOOTS OF SPRINGING
ALLOWS THE USER TO JUMP FIVE TIMES THEIR ORIGINAL JUMP HEIGHT WITHOUT RISK OF BODILY HARM.
+5 AGI